32 is Magic
by Rachel2008
Summary: Everybody needs solace and so does Cristina.


Title: # 32 is Magic

Author: Rachel2008

Disclaimers: They aren't mine, no copyright infringement is intended, blah blah blah.

Spoilers: None.

Summary: Everybody needs solace and so does Cristina.

Rating: T, just because.

Feedback: Like it, don't like it, just let me know. Don't be shy.

Archive: No.

Writer alert: This was written for Clockwork_Jo at LJ, and the lovely Flip-flop Diva from the GA fanfiction community at LJ was the most gracious beta. Both of them are excellent writers, so go read their work.

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Cristina Yang remembered the exact moment she had decided she needed to buy a Los Angeles Lakers' jersey. The year was 1992 and every single news show devoted what seemed an outrageous extra amount of time to sports. Sure, Barcelona Olympics. But the games wouldn't be until July and it was still January, which made it all even more ridiculous. Even she, a girl who had barely turned 13 years old, knew that more important things were happening in the world. Just a few months before, NASA had launched Galileo, and it had been an event of such magnitude that Cristina had religiously read the science section of the newspaper every morning since then. Also, did those fanatics who kept talking non-stop about swimming and track and field know that half of these people going to Spain were on steroids anyway?

But then, one morning, things had changed. She had been doing homework in the kitchen, when some anchor had started babbling about the upcoming NBA All-Star Game and how some players were reticent about being in court with Earvin Magic Johnson, who had announced the previous year that he had HIV. Of course, there were risks, her own step-father, an oral surgeon, had taken precautions, but surely Karl Malone had made enough money throwing balls into a hoop to get himself educated about the situation and not go public saying things like being concerned about playing against an AIDS-infected opponent. Right?

So, Cristina had a purpose in mind when she told her stunned mother and her bemused step-father that she wanted a Lakers' jersey. An official #32 Los Angeles Lakers' sleeveless jersey. She had already done an extensive project for the Science Fair about HIV and AIDS and was aware of the misinformation and the prejudice that surrounded the disease and the people suffering from it. This time, however, she was going to do something different. For, she, Cristina Yang, was going to be a scientist and it was her job to fight ignorance and fear, to shed light into the darkness.

She had a plan and her plan consisted, among other things, of wearing that yellow thing every single day until the game, showing her support to Magic Johnson and to everyone battling AIDS and the narrow-minded. She was a girl with a cause and she would show Karl Malone. She hadn't even cared when her step-father, Saul Rubenstein, had gently told her that Johnson and Malone were going to be playing together on the Western team. As far as she was concerned, it was Earvin Magic Johnson, her and every single person living with the virus against the blindness.

Cristina just wished her father had been alive, because he would have understood her. Her father had been a man who believed in doing the right thing, in taking a side, in making a difference. He had taught her that anyone could help change the world, even a little girl.

The next week she had tried to learn everything she could about basketball, slam dunks, layouts, fouls, pick and roll... after all, if she was going to watch the game, she better be familiar with the rules. Topping her efforts, Saul had taken an interest in her interest and she wouldn't embarrass herself in front of him. She wouldn't give her mother an excuse to scowl at her again.

Cristina just wished her father had been there, because her father wouldn't have waited until a couple of days before the game to get her jersey.

It had been Saul who had driven all the way to The Forum, so she could see where the Lakers played and buy her much desired garment at the store down there. Disappointment had been plastered on her face when the saleswoman, a chubby blonde in her mid-30's with a tag that had "Jo" written on it on her chest, had told her with a smooth Southern accent that all the pieces her size had been sold out. That all the jerseys had been sold out. A new lot would arrive in two days, but then the game would have passed. Sure there were other places they could buy her jersey, but Cristina hadn't wanted to ask Saul. She had sensed he had done too much already... for his and her mother's standards anyway.

"Why don't you take a t-shirt?" the blonde had suggested. "We are short of your size, but you are going to be taller in a few years."

"But it's not the official jersey," Cristina had protested. If she was going to show her support, she was going to do that her way. She didn't want a piece of fabric three times her size. Everybody had a t-shirt. She wanted a fitted women's jersey, she wanted to look normal and not like a nerd hiding in a tent. "I need a # 32 jersey. For the game." _For him to win_.

The blonde had smiled knowingly at Saul, then had turned to Cristina. "But # 32 is magic, makes anything happen, sweetheart."

That was when Cristina had noticed the small red ribbon on the woman's shirt and somehow, at that very moment, in a decision that was so uncharacteristically like her, she had chosen to believe that # 32 was really magic. Maybe it had been the gentleness in the blonde's voice, maybe it had been Cristina's own need of something that wasn't pure Cartesian or simple black-and-white solutions, but she had caved in.

She had worn her shirt and she had watched the game with Saul, and the latter action in itself had been something to remember, for even though he was a decent man and had always treated her fairly well, her step-father was as distant as her own mother. It had occurred to her, for the very first time, that Saul Rubenstein was more than a boring dentist from Beverly Hills. He had jumped from the couch at each pass, rebound and dribble, and Cristina had seen — though she didn't have yet the required understating to grasp the full extension of what life did to people through the years — the skinny Jewish boy he once had been, a kid who like many others of his generation had dreamed of being Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and mastering the sky hook shot.

When Magic Johnson, leading the West to a win, had ended the game with a last-minute three pointer and players from both teams, including Malone himself, had ran on to the court to hug him, the dental surgeon had pulled the skinny Asian girl in an oversized Lakers' t-shirt in to his arms and swirled her around the room, both of them laughing senseless.

Cristina Yang and Saul Rubenstein never again shared a moment like that.

Cristina Yang never again cared about basketball.

She had never gotten rid of her Lakers' tee, though.

As years had passed, she had gotten taller, but she had kept her slender frame and therefore, the shirt had remained too big for her. But she had worn the piece several times after 1992, and if Cristina were honest with herself, if she weren't afraid of confessing something so ridiculously silly, she would have admitted that such occasions had occurred only when she had been overwhelmed by things, only when she hadn't had absolute control over her life.

But Cristina Yang didn't do comfort blankets.

When her first teenage crush and very first boyfriend had dumped her for a pretty Latina with a mega-watt smile, she had sulked for days in her favorite t-shirt.

When she had impatiently waited to be accepted to Stanford, evaluating her chances in spite of her excellent grades, it had been in the Lakers' tee that she had wandered back and forth in her room, a spoon in one hand, a bowl of ice cream in the other.

When she had freaked out at the amount of research she still had to cover for her PhD, the amount of pages she had to write in order to finish her thesis – a thesis she would never present to the bench unless she was sure they would accept it as it was, without a single change – her t-shirt had been the only thing she had worn in those long nights when Cristina Yang had doubted Cristina Yang.

When she had lost the baby, a baby she had never wanted, a baby she had referred to as "it", Meredith had driven her to her place after she had been released, had put her in bed and had helped her into her tee, rocking her gently as she had cried a little more, physically and emotionally exhausted.

The night Meredith had almost died after drowning in the waters of Seattle, Cristina had shopped in dollar stores and put her favorite piece of clothing on as soon as she had entered the apartment she lived in with Preston Burke. Trying to cheer her up the best he could, he had said that he had never pegged her as a Lakers fan, never mind a Johnson groupie. When she hadn't replied, he had tried again, teasing her that yellow and purple weren't really her colors, but she had been too worried, too scared to care. She hadn't even bothered to look at him, instead twisting the hem of her shirt thinking about all those "what ifs" — what if Derek hadn't seen Meredith, what if the ambulance hadn't been fast, what if Meredith… what if, what if.

When Burke had left her at the altar, in a church full of people, her family, friends and co-workers, Cristina had spent what was supposed to be their first night as newlyweds naked. Not even a paper-thin sheet protecting her from the cold air. Part of her had wanted her body free of the restraints she herself had not so unwillingly submitted to, her skin able to breathe. Part of her had wanted to prove him wrong, because she had known, she just had known, that he thought she was crying in a giant Lakers t-shirt.

She had sobbed so much after Burke had won the Harper Avery Award that there were damps spots over the "K" and the "E" of "Lakers".

It wasn't going to work this time. West wasn't going to win against East, Malone wouldn't hug Johnson, she wouldn't be approved with honors, Meredith wouldn't come back from death, Burke wouldn't pass, she wouldn't be able to regain the control of her own life.

Because lying in her bed, staring at the stupid - _stupid stupid_ - fan on the ceiling, she couldn't fathom how things would ever get better again. She wasn't dumb, she had done enough research to know he could and he would get better. Sooner or later the panic and the anxiety and the nightmares would be gone and the wounds, wounds so horrifying she couldn't bear to imagine what had caused them, would be healed.

Cristina couldn't shake the feeling that she, too, had corroborated in their demise. She should have told him he was not fine, she was not fine. But he had been hurting for so long and so deeply, he was in pain and she couldn't stand to witness that, to inflict more distress on him. But in the end, he had -

even though she was absolutely certain that he would never see it that way, that he would never accept that, that he would have chopped off his arm if he could - an excuse. She didn't. She had chosen to not see because…

She knew why, but it didn't matter anymore.

Cristina couldn't fix it. She couldn't push away the dread she had conjured, albeit unintentionally, upon herself. She couldn't unfear the feared. She couldn't tell herself that she would ever be able to sleep next to him and not be scared, for she was aware that her dismay would always linger in the back of her mind. It would loom over them like a shadow, following for… ever.

Ironically, it wasn't that she couldn't trust him. She couldn't trust herself.

Her right hand clutched the yellow fabric slightly upward over her chest, her fist opening and closing in a steady beat and she wished there was some relief for him, too, that he too had a blanket over his heart for comfort. But as she drifted into sleep, utterly hopeless, a voice echoed in her mind, a soft murmur from a past that seemed so distant, and yet was so close.

_But # 32 is magic, makes anything happen, sweetheart. _

_Finis._


End file.
